Salary Information

In late 2012, we added the work of Dr. Michael
Haupert. Dr. Haupert is a professor of economics at UW-LaCrosse
and he has painstakingly gone through the Hall of Fame's records to
find player contract information for nearly 7,000 player seasons
primarily from 1915 to 1969.

Generally, there were be one salary per season and we will note any
disputed numbers. Note that under one circumstance, there WILL be
multiple salaries for the same player in the same season. It happens
when the player was released during a multi-year contract, but signed
by someone else -- the new team pays him the major-league minimum,
with the other club responsible for the balance. Both will be listed.
Similarly, you'll run across a few salaries for seasons after a player
has apparently retired -- those are the players released during
multi-year contracts who weren't picked up by anyone else.

For some players, there is no salary information, official or
unofficial, available for players who weren't on the 25-man roster or
the DL as of either Opening Day or August 31. The media reports use
these cutoff dates for their published salary lists, and the official
list -- "Joint Exhibit 1" for use in salary arbitrations -- looks only
at the August 31 roster. Anyone called up after September 1, or for a
few weeks in midseason, slips through the cracks. It's reasonable to
assume that all rookies who fit this description are earning the
minimum.